


Another Kind

by KenyaKetchup (temptedmelibea)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Grooming, This isn't romantic, and some overall disgust, but this is sans' pov so, covert abuse, expect some sick rationalizations, frisk is a teenager, if this happened to you you probably know what i am talking about, one-sided for the most part, sans is a gross adult, some adult words and topics, the writing itself is pretty tame but the subject is not, with maybe a hint of dirty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26806501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temptedmelibea/pseuds/KenyaKetchup
Summary: "Frisk is sixteen but Sans never counts it as sixteen. He counts sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or subtracts the sixteen from the eighteen and leaves two."Frans but not Frans. Please read the tags.
Relationships: Frisk/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	Another Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello (hopefully) fellow elders. Remember those times being a teen and having that one cool adult notice you?
> 
> This isn't a Frans fic.

The air smells cold and slightly more humid at night. Sans has never gotten over this. It smells crisp and fresh, no matter where he goes outside. It doesn't smell like Waterfall—the air is all stagnated down there, so damp it's asphyxiating—but it _feels_ like Waterfall, somehow. Even in the city.

Sans has never gotten over the air, just like he hasn't gotten over the way light contamination blocks out most of the night sky in the city. He hasn't gotten over the noisiness of the streets, the openness of it all. How far and how _fast_ vehicles can go on the highway. He hasn’t gotten quite used to it yet.

And he hasn't gotten over… Just… How ridiculously _stupid_ his doorknob is. God _damn_. Just… Take the _damn fucking key_ , and…

Oh.

Oops. Heh heh. That's the wrong key.

He’s been living in the same street for ten months but still doesn’t feel familiar enough with this city to take shortcuts while drunk. It makes every date he goes in more expensive, but he prefers the extra cost of an uber to accidentally showing up at the wrong house.

Sans tries a couple different keys until finally, he's made it. Finally he’s inside the house, a tiny two-story home he's bought all by himself. All the rooms are narrow because the house is pretty narrow itself. It’s in a tiny lot and barely has a yard, but still… It has three bedrooms crammed in it and it was cheap. The exact two things he needs so Frisk can have her own bedroom in the weekends, while still keeping an extra spare room for Paps.

He gets Frisk every Friday night and has until Sundays to give her back to Tori. Frisk has never asked to leave before a Sunday in four years, not even back when they all had to split the couch at the beginning. Paps is a different story: Sans hasn't seen him in months. Last postcard he got from Papyrus is from somewhere in Chile. He’s supposed to hike the Andes, learn some Quechua or both.

Sans stumbles into the tiny living room and slowly drags himself up the stairs. It's late and Frisk is home. He doesn't want to wake her up. He walks past her room and into his. Ignores the ever-present mess that’s his bedroom and collapses on top of his bare mattress.

…And then he wakes up with a _resounding_ headache. It feels like only a few minutes have passed, but really he went to bed at 4:12 and it is already way past 2 PM.

"...shit," San hisses, squinting at the time on his phone. He has a missed call from Alphys and two texts from Sam, the girl he slept with the night before. He groans—He really shouldn't have done that. Guilt sinks in.

The walls are thin and the cheaply manufactured doors don't do a thing to block sound. He can hear Frisk moving about downstairs, by herself since stars know when. He takes a moment to thank his lucky stars that the kid is sixteen and she’s no longer a tattletale. Back when she was twelve and he used to sleep in past noon, it usually got him in trouble with her mother.

Kid is old enough to know better now and doesn't snitch to Tori. If Sans sleeps in and Tori asks about their weekend, Frisk has his back and keeps it to herself. If Frisk doesn't feel like studying or doing chores the entire weekend, Sans keeps that to himself too.

They're dysfunctional, but they're pals. So when he drags himself down the stairs and finds that Frisk once again got delivery, he mutters a "nice" and doesn't remind her that Tori said that money was meant to be for going out.

"morning." Sans takes advantage of the fact that she’s sitting and playfully ruffles the kid's hair. She yells out ("Hey—!") and when she's distracted, he steals one half of her sandwich.

" _Hey, don't—!_ " 

He takes a bite, grimaces, then gives it back. Four years living at the surface, and he still isn't used to the overabundance of human food. "gross."

"Serves you right," Frisk glares up at him. Sans ignores it and makes his way to the coffee pot. The pot is full.

"stars... i love you," he mutters, grateful as fuck. Sans never wants kids of his own, but if he did, he'd want them like Frisk. The kid is immensely helpful.

Frisk is guarding her sandwich now and shrugs. "I figured you'd need…" She gestured to the pot. "Heard you coming back super late."

"you heard that, huh?"

"You were pounding at the door and cussing pretty loud."

"well, shit."

He rummages through the pantry drawer until he finds what he's looking for: a half-empty box of spider donuts. They’re pretty stale and it’s about time to buy new ones, but eating just one still does the trick. He doesn't have a hangover anymore..., like magic.

Ha.

"I hate that you can do that," Frisk tells him. Sans has never actually let her get drunk with him, but he's been drunk around Frisk enough times that she likes to pretend she knows exactly what it's like. "How was your date?"

Sans takes a pause. Eyes his coffee and the fridge way over there, then chooses to drink it black.

Straight from the pot.

"Ew," Frisk comments.

"date was a date," Sans says. He doesn't really feel like giving specifics. Sometimes he does, and he _really_ gives Frisk specifics. If he wants some feedback or ideas… the kid usually has really good insight. But this last girl was… "don't think i'll see her again."

Frisk frowned. "Didn't you say you met her at work…?"

"it's a big campus," Sans shrugs. "plus she's a marketing major, and i'm teaching quantum electrodynamics."

"You're really going to get in trouble if you keep dating students at work," Frisk tells him. Sans has told this to Frisk a couple of times. Doesn't mean she isn't right.

"i know i'm messed up," he admits. He sits across from her at the kitchen table, coffee pot in hand. "i just can't help it, y'know? if i meet them at work…"

He doesn't want to admit that the reason he 'can't help it' is that he likes the sick ego boost he gets when he dates someone much younger. He feels like he can tell Frisk almost anything. They're very close. But he doesn't want to tell her the worst parts about him, the stuff that makes him look bad.

"Dude, you're thirty-seven." Frisk likes to pretend she knows just how old thirty-seven is, just like she liked to pretend she knew all about thirty-six, thirty-five and thirty-four. "You have to grow up at some point. Don't you want to find a real girlfriend?”

No.

"i mean… i have three steady jobs and a house," Sans grins. "paps's the one off hiking some south american mountain right now. why don't you tell him off instead?"

"Because he's not around," Frisk shrugs. She takes the last half of her sandwich, inspects the hole left by his big bite, and then glares at him before digging in. "He also doesn't steal my food just to spit it up 'cause it's human food."

"fair enough." Sans takes another big gulp of his coffee and then drinks most of it until there's only a little left. Frisk finishes her sandwich and moves on to the chips, tossing him a few despite the fact that they're for humans. 

"Take your spoils before you steal them," she tells him. Sans chuckles and grabs the chips, crunching them up between his fingers as he makes sounds like he pretends to eat.

Frisk used to find this hilarious when she was twelve, but now she doesn't anymore. Instead she just smiles to herself and eats her chips. They like to pretend like they're eating together sometimes, even though she's human and he's definitely not.

Sans' phone beeps.

He takes it out of his pants pocket and then groans. The girl again. He never even bothered to save her phone number, but he knows it's her just by the texts. He tosses the phone over to Frisk, letting it slide across the wooden table. "take a look at this."

Frisk looks down at the screen and then scrolls up a little bit, looking for context. Sans doesn't mind. They always do stuff like this. "Is this the lady you went out with…?"

"she's more like a girl, but you see my point, right? she's boring as fuck."

"It reads to me like she just really wants to find her keys but ok."

"why would i have her keys."

"I don't know. Maybe since you were both drunk, you accidentally took them?"

"scroll up."

Frisk takes a deep breath, then starts dramatically reading as she scrolls up " _IIIIII_ had a great night with you, Sans, smile emoji.” She does a voice like she’s the sender but bored out of her mind. "Are you here? I'm at the wine emoji, beer emoji, martini emoji, winky face, dot, dot, dot, dot… 'I'll call you,' you replied…”—she looks at him—"Enthusiastically… Ok. Can't wait to see you toniiiigght, three heart eyes emoji, wine glass emoji, dot, dot, dot, dot…" Frisk stops reading. "Okay, I see your point."

"she's very vapid, right?"

"Too many emojis," Frisk concedes. "She seems to like you, though."

Sans finds he wants a little more from her, maybe diss his bad date together. "she was incredibly boring, too."

"What do you mean?"

"i mean… the sex."

Frisk's eyes go much wider. She twists her face up with disgust, face red as she judges him. " _Ew._ "

Sans laughs. "what?"

"Sans, I did _not_ want to know that. Gross."

She's overreacting and Sans finds it hilarious. "you only think it's gross now," he teases. "wait until _you_ have sex."

" _Ew!!!_ " She covers her ears with her hands,

"you won’t be a virgin forever—",

and yells " _La la la!_ I did _not_ hear that!". She scrunches up her face and hides it in her arms.

Sans finds it funny and a little cute. "give it a couple of years," he chuckles, and finishes off the rest of his coffee in one gulp. Frisk pretends like she doesn't hear him. Sans doesn't really care.

She's sixteen now and it feels like a countdown. Sans isn't sure he knows what he's hoping for. He's hoping for _something_. He doesn't know what.

"sex really isn't that bad," he tells her. She's quiet. He wants to elaborate. He opens his mouth.

"I would literally rather die than get 'the talk' from you right now," she says.

Sans doesn't elaborate.

Something gnaws inside his chest cavity and he can't pinpoint the feeling. A faint bitterness lingers, like rejection but more ridiculous.

He tells himself he doesn't like boundaries because Frisk is supposed to be his best pal. They tell each other _everything_ , right? They trust each other explicitly.

He squirms around, as if trying to cement something that isn't settled. "all i'm saying is, i'm not interested."

"You're never interested."

She's not exaggerating, but the way she says it makes Sans think he should stop. Frisk has already checked out of the conversation. She fiddles with her bag of chips before taking a sip of what's probably soda. Another perk she gets for staying over with him.

Tori went nuts doing research the second they got out from underground. She says soft drinks have too many weird ingredients and they can't be good for kids ‘cause they’re still growing. Sans thinks he knows better, and a few cans of coke aren't the end of the world. Frisk definitely takes advantage of this. He doesn't think he's ever seen her drink water at his house, but Sans doesn’t really care.

He reaches out to get his phone back and Frisk throws it over before he summons it. The emojis from last night still litter the screen. He makes a show of deleting the conversation without answering. Frisk sees.

He revisits the same conversation they have every couple of weeks. "if she was like you, i'd consider it." Sans means it. Sans also talks sometimes like he's some kind of prize even though he and Frisk both know he is not. In reality, Frisk is the prize—but she's awkward and still battling acne and the first and only time she was hit on, it was a 14 year-old boy and she was embarrassed for days.

Sans has three jobs and he doesn't have a car, but his job as a professor is promising. He got his PhD validated last year. He's enough of a novelty at school that it impresses quite a few college girls. Girls who can't be much older than Frisk and still don't know better or see through him.

Frisk is sixteen but he never counts it as sixteen. He counts sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or subtracts the sixteen from the eighteen and leaves two.

Two.

Frisk isn't done with her drink, but she's done with the bag of chips. She crumples up the empty bag and tosses it at him. He allows it to hit his shirt. The bag falls on his lap and he opens it, uses it to clean up the bits of chip he had been pretending to eat with his fingers.

Frisk looks at him. Frisk sees him. Frisk doesn't seem entirely comfortable, but she says, "If she was like me, you probably wouldn't have been able to drag her out of the house."

"i drag _you_ out of the house."

"That's because mom literally drives me… from my house to _another_ house."

"you're a homebody," Sans says. "i get it. if i had to walk the entire underground in the span of a week to free every single monster in the world, i wouldn't leave my bed for ten years."

"Clearly, I'm a hero."

"i worship you."

Frisk's hides her face behind her cup. The white of the styrofoam contrasts with the red tinge in her skin and Sans realizes she's blushing. He gets the same sort of sick satisfaction he feels when he sees a girl checking him out. He has to pull back, not chase it.

There's a sharp line he's been toeing but dares not to cross. 

Sans turns in his seat to toss the empty coffee pot towards the kitchen sink behind him. He notices the tall stack of dirty tupperware, the dried remnants of human and monster foods slowly bonding themselves to the plastic. "tori's gonna want those containers back tomorrow."

Frisk groans. Her face hits the table. Sans doesn't know if it's the teenager in her, or if his laziness has really rubbed off on her like Tori says.

"Alphys washes all of mom's tupperware herself."

Sans laughs. "she lives with undyne. you think i don’t know they make you help out?” She’s so blatantly trying to manipulate him, it’s funny. “c'mon, kid. if you help me clean up, i'll take you out for the night."

Her face lights up. "Where are we going?"

"your telescope’s still in your room, yeah? we could go back to mount ebott, make a night picnic out of it."

"Deal." She's so excited she gets up and cleans without complaining. He doesn't point out that he's having his way basically, and he's successfully dragging her out of the house.

-

A sky as starry as this one feels like a breath of fresh air. It's a new moon and the sheer number of constellations visible almost overwhelms Sans with his own giddiness. He’s reached the point where he can barely tell how stifling the constant artificial lights feel in the city. Getting away from it all is a refreshing reminder. He basks in the dim lights glittering in the sky and in the lack of movement and lack of sound.

Frisk looks through the stars in the night sky app, one of the first apps he ever downloaded for his surface phone. Sans used to spend entire nights on it and now he hardly ever uses it. He remembers that Frisk likes to see Saturn with its rings and Jupiter. Neither planet is visible right now, but she still asks about them. Sans wants to see Omega Centauri because he likes the twinkling of the millions of stars in the globular cluster. Frisk is busy trying to decide if she would rather see anything else.

"What about this one?" She points at a bright star on the app. Sans stops what he's doing with the telescope and sees that she's pointing at Spica in the Spring Triangle. Spica is a binary star and Sans hasn't yet tried to see it with Frisk's telescope. He got the telescope for Frisk’s last birthday in September and its way better than his. Maybe they’ll see both stars with it. 

"spica it is."

Sans adjusts the telescope while Frisk sits on their blanket. She munches on the family-sized bag of chisps they brought for their picnic and watches him work. They have chisps, popcorn, juice pouches and a pack of lunchables especially for Frisk. Starfaits and nice cream in the cooler. Candy in a plastic bowl. The picnic feels decadent because the food is a pile of trash. 

Sans finally finds and focuses on Spica and it's a binary star system, but with Frisk's telescope it still looks like a single big star. He sighs and wishes he could sneak Frisk into an observatory. 

"come take a look." He extends a hand towards Frisk and she takes it. The warmth of her skin feels soft against his bones. The feeling lingers even after he's helped her up and she lets go of him. Sans finds himself squeezing his own hand, trying to memorize how it feels to hold Frisk’s hand against his.

They're rarely ever physically close anymore because Frisk turned fourteen and started feeling awkward about everything. Still, just this once he lets his hand rest against her waist as he pulls Frisk closer to the telescope. The second his fingers touch her shirt, he doesn't want to pull away. She stands rather stiffly and so does he, but she still gazes into the telescope without squirming away from him like she used to.

Frisk has hit every cringe stage a teenager might hit, and Sans has been there for all of it. She's gone from boy band fangirl at age twelve to emo pseudo-rebel by fourteen, and now she's trying to get herself into angry screamy metal. The worn-out black band sweatshirt she's wearing is loud by design and oversized. It doesn't at all fit her personality, but just like Tori, Sans stays quiet. Frisk looks like a giant marshmallow wearing black liner and spikes. She’s trying to look cool and dangerous, but in the end all it does is highlight that she’s even more harmless than Temmie.

Twelve, fourteen, sixteen. It feels like days ago Frisk was fifteen and now there's just two years to go and not three.

"Spica was two stars in one, right?" Frisk asks him. Sans grins so wide at the fact that she remembers, he has to pull away from Frisk so that he doesn't pull her close.

"that's right," he says. "look at you, remembering."

"You used to make me come out here every night at first, and then like every spring break and summer. Of course I remember."

Frisk goes back to looking into the telescope. Now Sans is looking at her. It's dark enough that Frisk has to use her phone as a light to see in detail, but Sans can see fine. 

He can see the way Frisk holds her hair away from her face as she leans down to the telescope.

Sixteen, seventeen…

Sans likes to tell himself he likes to play with numbers. That he counts them down and up and then back down because he's looking for patterns, but he's never needed to find a pattern quite like that.

It's been four good years since the last time a timeline reset and he has no reason to think it will happen again.

And yet it's always two plus two now. He counts from twelve to fourteen to sixteen to eighteen. Sometimes he's generous and counts further. Very rarely and when he’s especially lonely, he counts a bit less.

This year, he counts by twos.

Last year, he counted by threes.

Frisk steps away from the telescope and Sans thinks like he's looked at her for too long. His eye lights shine on Frisk faintly enough that it’s not obvious but he still wonders if she has noticed. Frisk looks at him. She raises her brow and gives him a grin.

"Let's see your pick."

She goes back to her spot on the blanket and Sans feels like a weight has been lifted from him. He refocuses his attention to the night sky. For a moment, he stops thinking about Frisk. The sinking weight that's ever-present on his chest lifts and he no longer feels heavy, doesn't feel the alarm bells that scrape slowly at his conscience as they ring.

He takes a deep breath of crisp, woodsy night air and refocuses.

Sans finds Omega Centauri even though at this point he knows Frisk will tease him for it. It’s one of his absolute favorite clusters: the biggest and brightest in the Milky Way. He’s dreamed of seeing it ever since he was a baby bones, studying dingy old astronomy textbooks at the Dump.

Now Sans can see it almost any time he wants. He takes another breath of fresh air and he savors it.

Frisk is laying on their blanket by the time he’s ready to share the telescope. She’s eaten half the food as if Tori and Sans don’t feed her, and she’s probably waiting for Sans to surrender his claim on his half of the chisps, too. Sans has just spent the about ten minutes thinking Frisk must be looking through his pictures or maybe playing a game on his phone from the way she’s been staring at it. But the second he looks down at her, Frisk points his own phone’s back camera up at him and reads “O-me-ga Cen-tau-ri.” She’s been on the night sky app this whole time and has probably been waiting to say it.

“you think you’re so clever,” Sans grins.

This time, Frisk lifts her hand up for his before he reaches for her. He takes her hand and tries not to focus on how good it feels against his own. When Frisk pulls back, Sans stealthily wipes his hand against the side of his pants. It’s not the first time he reminds himself that he’s Frisk’s childhood friend and well over twice her age; just the fact they’re here alone might seem creepy.

"you having fun?"

He acts like he's just checking in but what he really needs to know is if she's okay with this. 

Sans has studied Frisk's face so many times. He's staring at her hard enough now he thinks his pupils might change to match her silhouette. But Frisk really does look quizzical when she looks back at him and says "sure". Sans convinces himself again that it's okay if he and Frisk are close. That it’s fine if they're best friends, ‘cause she’s fine with it.

He's told Frisk she's ‘very mature for her age’ so many times, even Sans is starting to believe it. 

Frisk asks to hear Sans’ stories of learning about astronomy at the Dump and Sans obliges. She never actually wants to hear about Sans' formal education or his stint in postgrad, but the Dump stories really fascinate her. Sans remembers back when Papyrus was two or three and got very attached to a garbage bag for a few weeks. He tells Frisk about how Paps carried that dirty black bag for weeks before he finally was able to replace it with a blanket and managed to sneakily get rid of the bag.

Frisk smiles. She likes his stories. She says, "That kinda makes me want to get him a garbage bag for Christmas."

They keep shooting the breeze and looking at the stars until eventually they're both laying side by side on the blanket. Frisk's arm feels soft and squishy against his even through both of their hoodies. Sans has been able to touch humans for a little over four years now, and he still can't get over their skin.

Frisk is talking about sleepovers and how Tori won't let her have a 'real' one with the other kids at her school. She's saying that sleeping over at Sans' house or Alphys and Undyne's doesn't count. Sans is agreeing at all the right points, his eyes focused elsewhere and his mind somewhere in the Coma Berenices cluster…

Frisk says, "I mean, if I haven't done it by now, I'll never do it. Just one of those things I won't get. Unless you want to…?”

Sans is silent.

“Truth or dare."

He's so far gone navigating the cluster that he doesn't think through it. All he hears is an easy choice plus a second one that has the potential to force him off his boney ass. "truth."

Frisk takes a moment to think. 

"Hmm… What's your favorite color?"

"bl—" Sans snaps out of it. What's his favorite _color_? He turns to look at Frisk. "kid… that’s your question? c'mon. you can ask something better than that."

"I can't think of anything, okay??" She’s quiet again. Looks up at the stars. Sans stares at the way Frisk's gaze changes under the starlight. "I already know why you like looking at stars so much, so I can't ask _that_ …"

"probably not the best game to play with someone you've known more than four years."

"Okay, I've got one."

"yeah?"

"you know how you keep all that stuff papyrus and I have made up on the fridge?"

"yeah."

"how come you never put any of his postcards up there?"

"'cause there isn't any room."

"Yeah, but like you could… I want to change my question."

"go ahead, but you're asking for a freebie."

"Do you… Like… Okay, Papyrus travelling over the world and being an ambassador. Do you like that?"

"would you?"

"I'm asking the question."

Sans thinks. They're pals, but the topic is sore to him and it's a breeding ground for petty resentments. "papy was really excited to be considered. and out of all of us… y'know. he was really the best for the job. the only alternative was you, but you were just a kid back then. still are." He takes one more look at the stars and then mutters, "but no, i don't approve of it."

"How come?"

"feels dangerous. i dunno… he's my baby brother. you're out of free questions."

"Okay."

"truth or dare, kid."

"Dare."

Sans lifts his hand, draws a quick circle with his finger. "run in the woods by yourself for two minutes."

" _What!?_ "

"you heard me. get to it."

"But it's _dark_!"

"you said ‘dare’."

"I want to change my choice to truth."

"you're taking an awful lot of liberties, bud… but ok. truth." Now it's _his_ turn to think. "hm… does your mom ever complain about me after i give you back?"

Frisk snorts. "No way. Mom's been too busy hiding that she's dating again."

"what!?"

"She thinks I haven't caught on yet, but forgot all about the door camera like the second after we got it installed. You're not gonna believe this, but one of the human diplomats is a giant furry."

"no way. for real?"

"Yeah, for _real_ for real." Frisk laughs. "I did some serious online stalking on him. You have no idea."

"shit, does your mom know?"

"I’m not even sure she knows what a furry is? I figured I don't want to know and I really don’t want to explain it to her, so mostly I’ve been playing dumb."

"wow."

"Yeah."

"excellent game of truth or dare."

"Thank you."

"ok, truth."

"We're staying on topic," Frisk says. "Do _you_ date furries?"

The question was easy. San lifts up his hand again, pulls back on his sleeve to expose bone. "i don't have the fur for it, is my _bare bones_ answer."

"Yeah, but…"

"you wanna know specifics?"

"Uh…I don't know."

"i date anybody," Sans tells her. "prefer humans. but i'm not really picky."

"Why do you prefer humans?"

"just something different. couldn't really date any when stuck underground, being trapped with all of monsterkind and all."

"Fair."

"i figure if i'm gonna be disappointed, i might as well try something new while i'm at it. but kid, to stick to the _truth_ —i do have _one_ preference. 'cause if you were a bit older, i'd date you in a heartbeat."

"Hilarious."

"i'm serious."

"You said a heartbeat. You don't have a heart."

"you caught me. ok, truth or dare."

"Is the dare still having me run around blind in the woods 'til I trip?"

"you know it."

"Ok, truth."

Sans chuckles to himself. "are _you_ a furry?"

"Eww. No."

"how come you’re not? you've been around monsters long enough…"

"My mom looks like a giant furry goat. I see fur, I think of my mother. No thanks."

"what if it's a bald monster? like one of those lava types."

"Gross."

"what if he shaves? ...she? they?"

"I'm straight. And no."

"just humans for you then?"

"I don't wanna say that. My school is mostly monsters and all the human diplomats’ kids are douches too, so like… Just no fur and no volcanos and no airplanes or anything."

"so fish are fine."

"I mean, it depends."

"humanoid fine. skeletons fine."

"Okay, I have a question. Choose truth, okay? Truth or dare?"

"dare."

"Are you kidding me??"

"what's your question? freebie time."

"Are there more skeleton monsters? Besides you and Papyrus."

"dunno."

"No, I'm serious."

"i really don't know. never seen one. don't know where we come from, either."

"For real?"

"i swear on a globular cluster."

"That's pretty weird."

"eh... you get used to it," Sans shrugs. "so give me a dare."

"Do ten jumping jacks."

"i meant a real dare."

"I've never seen you exercise."

"i 'exercise' just fine. ask my gal pal from last night."

"Ew. TMI."

"well i pass on your dare."

"You can't do that!”

"punish me."

Frisk takes a frustrated exhale. She sounds pretty annoyed from the way the air sounds sharp as it leaves her nostrils, her mind working frantically to find a way to punish him. "You know, I never said this, but I totally know you had a crush on Mom when we first met."

"on toriel?"

"It was super obvious. But Mom doesn't know. I could tell on you."

"you're gonna tell your mother you think i had a crush on her four years ago. _had_ a crush."

"It's super embarrassing."

“’s not embarrassing at all.”

“Hello, it’s a crush. Of course it’s embarrassing.”

"look. i'm not embarrassed to say i've had a crush on one specific member of your household, but that gal is not your mother."

"It’s still— Wait, back up. What are you saying?"

"you live alone with your mom in new home aboveground. i've had a crush on one of you two, but it's not your mother."

Frisk sits up to look down at him. "I'm sixteen."

"this's from back when you were fifteen. i didn't do anything about it."

"You're teasing."

"i'm not. you called me on a school night a little after midnight. said you couldn't sleep and asked if i could take you on a shortcut to the lake. remember?"

"Yeah…"

"i couldn't stop thinking about it for days afterwards. if you hadn't been fifteen, i would have asked you out."

"But I'm…"

"i wanted to kiss you," he says. Still laying down as he looks up at Frisk, it almost feels like she's so far away that she’s part of the stars. "i wanted to kiss you at the lake. we were alone there for two hours. i wanted to kiss you almost the whole time, but i didn't."

Frisk looks down at him but doesn't say anything. Sans wants to say more, but he doesn't say anything else. Yet if she dared him to kiss her tonight, he probably would. He wants to say that to Frisk, but he doesn't.

There's a line he's been toeing, pushing at, testing… but it's a line he still doesn't dare to cross.

"you're my best friend," he finally says. "sometimes you're so mature, i just forget how young you are."

Frisk makes a point of laying back down beside him. Their arms are touching again, but now Sans wonders if there's a point behind it. Maybe Frisk is trying to prove something. Maybe Sans is imagining too much.

"You didn't do the dare."

"guess not."

"Can I ask for truth?"

"'course."

"You _had_ a crush on me… Right?"

"yeah."

"Do you still have it now? The crush I mean."

"yeah."

There's a soft, slow intake of breath beside him. He can hear the air dragging in, the quiet pause before she exhales. It's slow and deliberate. She's taking it in. Thinking.

"it doesn't change anything," he says. "we're still just buds. i'm not gonna make any moves you don't want me to."

"Okay. Truth."

Sans hasn't asked to resume the game. He wonders if Frisk just wants to bury what he said. "what'd you wish i would ask you right now?"

"I don't know. Ask me if… Okay. No freebies. Your turn."

"truth."

"Have you ever felt like maybe you like someone but maybe you don't? Like, you feel good around them, but you aren't _sure._ "

"yeah. that's normal."

"'Cause that's my truth."

"ok."

"So like… How would you know if I want you to do something?"

"you would ask."

"But what if I'm not _sure_."

"honestly?" Sans takes a pause to imagine what it would feel like to cross the line. To give in and offer Frisk a trial run. Offer to kiss her. Make her find out.

He misses the part where Frisk gives him permission to be honest. Thinks it over in his head, savors the feeling. But he's not honest.

There's a line. It thins down with every weekend they spend alone together, but there's still a line. And even if Frisk offers to let him cross it, offers to tear down what little boundaries they have that keep her safe…

He shouldn't take the opportunity. So he doesn't. "if you aren't _sure_ , it means you don't want to. 's no big deal."

"But—"

"it's _really_ not a big deal. i wouldn't be so casual about it if it was. i was just saying. 's just the lizard brain."

"You're a skeleton. You're not supposed to _have_ a lizard brain."

"i _do_ have a lizard brain." Sans knocks twice at his own skull. "you can't see it 'cause it's magic. doesn't mean it's not there."

"So you're really just…"

"just the lizard brain. i'm a big boy, i can handle it. don't tell anyone though."

"Ok."

"truth or dare, bud."

Frisk lifts her head up slightly and looks at the woods. Under so much starlight, Sans can make out most of everything in different shades of grey and black. Frisk cannot, and they don't have a flashlight.

"Okay, dare."

Sans stops breathing for a moment despite himself. He thinks two, almost one, and lets go.

"go run naked in the woods until you run into something."

Frisk screeches, "That's not what the first dare was like!"

"delayed dares carry interest. you borrowed time."

"Well, I'm not going to run naked!"

"you pass? comes with a punishment according to you."

"I never punished you."

"that's 'cause i'm shameless enough that you can’t. now let me think…" 

" _Hey_ —"

"…what kind of horrible punishment can i inflict on you?"

"I'll run in the woods for two minutes."

"offer considered and rejected. i wanna update your status on the social media platform you have the most friends in."

"But I have people from school there."

"this punishment just keeps getting sweeter."

"If you do that, I get to do it to you too."

"what do you wanna write?"

"You tell me first."

"..."

"..."

"i want to write… 'i need help. how do i know if i am pregnet'."

"Then I want to write: 'Think I made a big mistake. She just called to let me know she is preganant'."

"..."

"You're facebook friends with a bunch of important people, too."

Sans snorts. "okay. new punishment."

" _Ha!_ "

"ok, how 'bout this? we wake up extra early tomorrow and have to prank call undyne. getting up early is punishment part one."

"Okay."

"part two of the punishment is we have to tell her who it is after she's been pranked."

"Oof."

"i know, right? but it's gotta be a punishment."

"She's gonna go after us."

"we’ll take her together."

"Deal."

The game after that sort of fizzles out. Frisk doesn’t restart anything. Neither does he.

They stay there looking at the stars until Sans notices Frisk is starting to fall asleep. He asks if she wants to shortcut back home. She groggily says yes. Sans picks up most of their stuff in a flash of magic; Frisk wraps their blanket around her like she’s a burrito as he does. She can’t see the dirt and grass stains that are transferring to her from the blanket. Sans does, but he figures Frisk won’t care.

Sans teleports them home and Frisk goes to bed. Sans stays behind.

Six to seven, seven to eight.

Sometimes it’s harder to pretend he doesn’t know what he’s counting to.

He has to wake up in a few hours to prank Undyne. He should be going to sleep, but he can’t do that quite yet. Sans sits at the kitchen table. He’s out of beer, but he still has ketchup. Frisk isn’t there to be grossed out to see him drink it, but it’s still something to drink.

Sans has to take a moment if he wants to live with himself for two more years.

He has to revisit his conversation with Frisk and turn it innocent. Make it harmless. Convince himself that the line is still there despite everything. Redraw it if necessary, maybe thinner this time.

If the line is still there, everything’s still okay. It’s what he tells himself.

Sans takes a sip of his bottle and starts defending everything away.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very sorry I've been MIA. Pandemic... chores... responsibilities... I still haven't abandoned that one fic but I really want to finish it all before I post another chapter. So if anyone's still reading... Thank you. It's still going to be a while. :') 
> 
> This snapshot just kept gnawing at my head and I had to get it out.


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